Huskies crew earns return trip to Moscow

'58 squad was first to compete behind Iron Curtain

By GREG JOHNS, P-I REPORTER

Updated 10:00 pm, Thursday, August 23, 2007

Having conquered all challengers in its homeland, the national champion University of Washington men's varsity eight crew will head to Russia next week to face some stringent international competition.

For the first time since a historic 1958 victory against four crews in the Soviet Union, the Huskies will compete on Russian waters in the Race of Champions on Sept. 1 in Moscow.

"This is one of the reasons you come to Washington to row, for opportunities like this," said UW crew coordinator Bob Ernst, who accepted the invitation after his men won the IRA national championship in June to cap an unbeaten 2007 collegiate season.

Now they'll take on traditional England powerhouses Oxford and Cambridge, as well as the host Moscow University squad on the Moskva River in downtown Moscow.

"In international racing, you don't know much about your opponents," said Jessiah Johnson, a junior out of Mercer Island. "So we're kind of going in blind. But it should be a great experience."

The Huskies know they'll be racing over a 3,500-meter (2.2-mile) course, considerably longer than the usual 2,000-meter college events. Additionally, they'll be on an open river with turns and changing winds and crowds of people as they pass by Red Square and the Kremlin.

"Finding out how the current plays into the racing tactics will be really important," said junior coxswain Katelin Snyder, who'll be responsible for guiding the crew through the course.

The Huskies have one practice day in Moscow to uncover those secrets, then will compete in the nighttime event in front of a crowd celebrating festivities surrounding the 860th anniversary of the city's foundation.

"My impression is this will be a big spectacle," Ernst said. "The river runs through the middle of town, kind of like the Mississippi River with concrete banks. It'll probably be like rowing in the ocean. We'll find out when we get there."

The Huskies will have seven of the nine members of their national champion crew. In addition to Johnson and Snyder, the returnees include seniors Heath Allen, David Worley and Steve Full and juniors Will Crothers and Max Lang.

The race hosts are paying all of the Huskies' costs, which Ernst said made the decision to go a no-brainer. Washington's prior trip to the Soviet Union stands as one of the program's signature moments, as it was the first U.S. sports team to compete behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War.

That crew lost to the powerful Leningrad Trud Club at Henley, but came back to win a rematch 15 days later in the Moscow Cup in what is regarded as one of the biggest upsets in racing history.

That might be old news to the current crop of Huskies, none of whom has ever been to Russia. But they'll have their own motivation when they hit the Russian waters as the unbeaten collegiate champs from the U.S.

"You never want to lose," said Johnson, a former wrestling and football standout at Mercer Island. "When you get undefeated, people start gunning for you. I don't know how this race will be viewed because these are international teams, but we definitely don't want to end our streak. We'd like to keep that going for a couple more years."